


Far Too Young To Die

by diamondgore



Series: Overindulged Paranoia [3]
Category: X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Depression, Family, Gen, Mental Illness, Sister-Sister Relationship, Violence, suicide ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:01:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25575469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diamondgore/pseuds/diamondgore
Summary: Sophie did not ask to be resurrected, but she was breathing and bleeding again.
Relationships: Esme Cuckoo/Irma Cuckoo/Sophie Cuckoo/Phoebe Cuckoo/Celeste Cuckoo, Stepford Cuckoos - Relationship
Series: Overindulged Paranoia [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1827157
Kudos: 9





	Far Too Young To Die

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Far Too Young To Die by Panic! At The Disco.
> 
> This story deals with sort of heavy issues so read at your own discretion.

Living is destruction, that is the universal truth. Living is the constant fight against entropy and the losses that are suffered.

From a moment a person is born, all they know is how to destroy. Their first act is one of destruction, and their last act is one of loss.

When Sophie crawled out of the egg for the first time, she had destroyed the place she called home for twenty-two years in her time or six hours in the real world. No one ever remembered their past after their rebirth, but Sophie did. She had a connection. She was tied to her sisters, and they made sure that she remembered it all.

Not one of The Five, nor Xavier could expect her screams, and tears as she crawled out, dripping in orange slime. She couldn’t stand up and dropped to the floor when someone tried to help her up. She curled up into herself and remained in the fetal position on the floor. She started to cry louder, knowing that she had died. She knew her sisters were calling out to her, they were even rushing to come and greet her, as she joined the living again.

But this was agony. Sophie wanted to be buried again.

Sophie’s eyes were shut tightly, as Hope and Xavier tried to coax her out of her position so that she could be given back her memories. She shut them out, as her sisters tried to contact her, a little burst of intermittent joy would spark in her heart, but it was ultimately too much for her to bear. So, she turned her body into diamond, so no one else could touch her.

Even when her sisters arrived, they couldn’t get her to move. They couldn’t get her out of her diamond form either. She was so rigid, and afraid. Celeste and Phoebe pet her hair, which was to calm her down, but even then, she wouldn’t get up and curled up even tighter.

Sophie was catatonic and unresponsive, but they needed to get things moving. The Five offered their help, but the Cuckoos declined. They would deal with Sophie as she was one of their own.

Celeste and Phoebe put her arms over their shoulders, to carry her off the ground. Their forms were turned into diamond so they could carry her away to their habitat, where nothing could hurt her. Where she could heal on her own time.

*

The Cuckoos shared a habitat. They did not live with Emma and her brothers. You should keep family close, but not when the mother is a venomous snake and the uncle is a stranger. Their decision to live on their own was unanimous. Even more so when Esme came back. They needed to be alone in order to grow. Emma had thrown them into the deep end too many times, and they would never go back to that.

Sophie was supposed to be the last piece of the puzzle, together they would be the Cuckoos again, finally reunited. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. They laid her down on a bed in a room that was supposed to be her own.

The room was simple, with a bathroom. Phoebe, Celeste, and Irma had decorated it slightly. A fresh vase of daisies to welcome her back, morbid. Her room was painted a pale blue, her sheets were freshly made.

“Hey Soph, are you okay?” Irma’s voice was soft as she sat next to her sister. “You haven’t said anything yet.”

Sophie looked up at Irma with her eyes glassy and reflective. She was in there somewhere, Irma knew this. She put her hand on Sophie’s head, petting her fine diamond strands of hair. The other sisters were standing at the door, nervous. Sophie had somehow shut them out, but she still had her memories.

“I know you’re a little freaked out. But we’re here for you, we want you here, okay?”

Celeste, Phoebe, and Esme were all at the door, waiting at the door. They didn’t know why Sophie wasn’t responsive to them. She usually was so warm and welcoming, what had shut her out this time?

Sophie was paralyzed. She could hear them, but she couldn’t speak. She couldn’t tell them this overwhelming sadness was enveloping her in such a way that everything felt like thick molasses.

This was supposed to be a happy time. She was finally reunited with her sisters. This was supposed to be her second lease on life, where she could redefine herself, but she wasn’t so sure why she was so unhappy.

She closed her eyes, and let Irma pet her hair. That was comforting.

She could be happy.

*

It was a slow process. Esme had hung around her room the night before. She sat on the edge of Sophie’s bed, not quite talking, but she was thinking out loud to her Sister. There was nothing on her mind that we too dark.

Esme had been reborn a week before. She had taken pride in coming back and rejoining the hivemind. She loved being alive.

Sophie did not mind her company, she enjoyed it. What they had done when they were younger, were bygones, but Sophie could not bring herself to speak. Esme was talkative and it made up for all the empty silence.

Esme changed her seat, moving to a lounge in the corner of the room.

“I wish you would talk Sophie,” Esme said, a little bit more endearing than usual. “You’re the only person who understands.”

Sophie sat up in bed, still silent.

“Irma, Celeste, and Phoebe, they all have these memories without us. We were dead for so long, and I keep poking around in their memories hoping for a silver lining, but there isn’t one. Not for us anyway.”

Esme rubbed the bridge of her nose.

“I feel we lost so much. Sure, we’re alive now, but we’re not on equal grounds like we usually are. They’re our sisters, but I feel like I don’t know them. It’s messed up that we have to reintroduce ourselves for people that are supposed to be our families.”

A gentle frown appeared on her face. Her eyes watched Sophie, as she was still unresponsive.

“You and I…We have more in common than all the rest, I need you now more than ever.” Esme sounded defeated more than anything. She was begging Sophie in her own way, sans getting on her knees to say anything.

But she just stared at her with a blank expression. Cool as pond water. They both knew there was something dark lurking behind her deep sapphire eyes.

Esme got up, walked back to Sophie’s bed, and put her hand gently on Sophie’s shoulder. “I just wanted you to know, I know we’ve never been on the best of terms, but I know that bitch I know is inside you. I hope you can get out of this funk soon.”

As she turned on her foot to leave Sophie’s room, she felt Sophie’s warm hand grab hers. It was no longer diamond; it was flesh and bone and an olive branch.

“Please stay,” Sophie finally said. Her voice was harsh, rough like she had been crying. Words were foreign on her tongue, but she did not want to be alone.

*

The next morning, the Cuckoos had breakfast in Sophie’s room. Emma would come by later to give Sophie all her memories back. There were pieces of cut fruit, poached eggs on toast, oatmeal, and sugary cereal. No one ate the cereal, but they had it as a treat for when Gabby visited their habitat.

Sophie was cold at first, unsure why the celebration. Even if the Cuckoos were whole again, she still felt like an outsider. It took a little bit to get warmed up the idea of breakfast in bed. The idea of love was a little foreign to her, especially with a language so rare to her like good.

She became more inviting when Celeste moved to the bed and draped herself over her sister. She idly chewed at grapes while Sophie marveled at the idea of avocado on toast.

“I’ve never seen this before,” Sophie said, taking a piece of avocado toast, and slicing it half. Runny yolk escaped the eggs. “Where would you even get eggs here?”

“Glob raises chickens now,” Phoebe said. “His chickens produce a surplus, so I traded three hours of babysitting for three dozen.”

“Three dozen eggs?” Esme said, horrified, “Who eats that many eggs?”

“There are five of us.” Irma reminded them. “36 eggs would last us a week assuming each one of us eats one egg a day.”

There was a weird buzz in the room, of energy, or electricity when Irma had made it certain, concrete that there were five of them. Irma bites into an apple harshly to defuse it. They all know this is weird. Bringing someone back from the dead is an equation unbalanced.

“Do we even go grocery shopping on here?” Esme was lounging on the floor, poking at her bowl of oatmeal. She had eaten about two-thirds of it, leaving only backwash. “No one gave me the 411 on that.”  
  


Phoebe, Celeste, and Irma, all giggled.

“No one says 411 anymore.” Celeste laughed.

“What do they say then?” Esme scrunched her face into a scowl. She was still a little bit of her old sensitivity left in her soul.

“People just say give me the rundown. Or give details.” Celeste poked a piece of peach with the back of her fork and shoved it into her mouth.

Esme huffed, not enjoying the fact that her elder sisters would still pick on her.

Hearing her sisters argue made Sophie smile. Maybe she could get the hang of being alive again.

*

Emma had come in later that day. Sometime around the afternoon. She had Xavier with her, but she politely asked him to stay out of the business she had with Sophie. Emma was more than strong enough to give Sophie back her memories and not deplete her own power.

It was a family affair, essentially.

“Is it going to hurt?” Sophie asked, her voice small and quiet.

“Not unless you want it to.”

Emma had Cerebro on. She felt that it was lighter than usual, but that didn’t matter. What mattered now as giving her daughter the rest of her memories back, the ones that the Cuckoos did not have any access too.

She sat on the bed across from Sophie and held her hand tightly. “Are you ready, my rose?”

There was no correct answer to this since it was a trick question, but Sophie nodded. She gripped Emma’s hand so tightly that it could bleed. Emma powered on Cerebro, and then followed the procedure to give Sophie her memories back.

Sophie screamed, and she could swear she heard glass break from the sharpness of her voice. The lost memories finally came back to her, but they were all so terrible.

She closed her eyes so tightly to force those memories from her brain. They were so fresh, and they stung so harshly. She wanted the faintness of her sister’s memories and not her own.

Emma was done and powered down Cerebro. She took off the helmet and put it to the side. She called Xavier in to take it away from her. She wrapped Sophie up in her arms and pulled her close to tell her that it would be okay.

“Please just make it go away.” She whimpered, as Emma held her close. 

*

Since the incident with her memories, Sophie was a mess. She barely left her bed. She didn’t communicate with anyone, all she wanted to do was die.

Dying was so easy. It was so finite. She did not have to prove herself to anyone. Her legacy was in stone if she died a hero, but she knew she had a capacity for evil. Like her mother, like her sister, like her grandfather.

This paranoia was gnawing at her soul. It was an infinite pain, indescribable. She wanted to die, was that so selfish? Was it so hard to die again?

*

Every few days there was a visitor that showed up at her door. Sometimes it was old friends, but most of the time it was Emma, Christian, and her sisters. They would converse with her briefly, or brush her hair, or force her to eat something.

She was still alive because of it, but she wasn’t sure if she was thankful. She sat in the darkness of her room, staring at the wall, unsure of what she should be feeling. She was lost, floating through a space that was unfamiliar to her.

But today, felt something new. Something different when a familiar face showed up at her door. It was burning anger that consumed her every being.

It was hard to tell who it was at first, but it turned out to be Quentin. With his flame-pink hair, and an apologetic look on his face. It didn’t take a telepath to know what he was doing. He wanted to come back here and atone for his sins. She was the Jesus he worshiped. But Sophie would not have herself soiled by the likes of him.

“Soph…” He can barely speak, all choked up about what he had done to her. “I just wanted…”

Her aura was set aflame, glowing a light blue.

Sophie got up for the first time in a week. Her legs were weak, and she was clumsy, but she was angry. Her soul was seething with rage, as she walked towards Quentin. “How dare you show up acting like we’re friends?”

He was frozen, eyes wide. He didn’t expect her to act with rage. She had to forgive him, right? But she was inching closer, and closer, her gait slow and clumsy. 

“You fucking killed me.” She swung her fist at him, knocking him on his ass. “You _kill_ me, and you act like we have something in common?” She got down on her knees, and crawled over him, filled with rage. Her fist turned into diamond and she slammed it into his nose.

There was a loud cracking noise. A scream like a dying cat.

Sophie’s fist dripped with blood. Her nose scrunched up in disgust. “I have never met a more entitled man in my life, Quire. You’re lucky you’re leaving here alive.”

Sophie considered going in for a second hit but decided he was too pathetic for her to spend another moment on. She had never had anything but pity for him anyway.

*

Since they found Sophie red with Quentin’s blood, the Cuckoos had taken time spending time with her to keep anything like that from happening again. They did not want her to keep falling into a cycle of both violence and depression.

It worked as well as it could’ve. Sophie had slowly emerged from her shell again, and the Cuckoos tried to keep her from falling into depression. She often sat in bed worrying about herself and her life. Worrying about how time she lost out on due to her death.

Sophie was on a constant downward spiral, and the Cuckoos were only around her to keep her alive. It was a labor, but they loved her enough to do this for her.

Esme was the one who kept close to Sophie for the most part. Half-out of guilt, and half-out of need. Sophie was the only person who understood how it was to feel so lost on Krakoa. While Esme and Sophie slept, the world changed around them leaving them in the dust.

That was why Esme was having lunch with Sophie, despite her not being a conversationalist. A simple lunch of sliced up tofu and some greens. They ate quietly for a few moments, till Sophie dropped her fork into the salad.

Esme tilted her head upwards, “Soph?”

Sophie looked at her, with that panicked wild look. “Do you think this will ever end?”

“What will?”

“Feeling like I’m losing my mind.”

She moved her plate from her lap, and moved closer to Sophie, taking her hand, and pulling her into a hug. “I’m sure it will Sophie.”

Sophie tightly shut her eyes, with a few tears falling from her eyes onto Esme’s hand.

This had to pass, one way or another.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on tumblr [@diamongore](https://diamondgore.tumblr.com), and on twitter [@goremeat! ](https://twitter.com/goremeat)


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